Royal turning points – Six milestones that defined the festival

Sue Montgomery
Sunday 17 June 2001 00:00 BST
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1906: The grand anticlimax

The Ascot Gold Cup was supposed to be the final jewel in the crown for the greatest of all racemares. Five-year-old Pretty Polly was unbeaten in 20 starts in England and started at 4-11. But she had had a close call against Bachelor's Button in the two and a quarter mile Jockey Club Cup the previous year and this time he wore her down to score by a length. The winner was a good and gallant horse but he had shattered a public idol and was greeted with a stony silence.

1913: The brilliance of youth

By the time of Royal Ascot, The Tetrarch, the fastest two-year-old of all time, had undergone a change of sobriquet. At first derided as "The Rocking Horse" for his blotched grey coat, he became "The Spotted Wonder". In the Coventry Stakes he was so far ahead after a furlong that a false start was assumed. The Tetrarch scorched in by 10 lengths and ended his season seven from seven, but to the regret of all he was injured during the winter and never ran again. Ten years later his daughter Mumtaz Mahal proved a chip off the old block with an eight-length success in the Queen Mary Stakes.

1919: The heavyweight champion

In a summer of post-war euphoria four-year-old Irish Elegance dazzled the racing world with a series of tremendous weight-carrying performances. Four days before the Royal Hunt Cup he warmed up by toting 9st 9lb to a six-length victory at Manchester and was backed down to 7-1 favourite at Ascot despite his burden of 9st 11lb. He set a record for the meeting's classiest handicap by giving 26lb and a length and a half beating to Arion. Irish Elegance later won the Portland Handicap under 10st 2lb.

1936: The bravest of the brave

Much is made of international competition between older horses these days but 66 years ago the Ascot Gold Cup featured a clash between three top-class four-year-olds that any modern entrepreneur would die for: Omaha, winner of the US Triple Crown; Samos, heroine of the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe; and Quashed, winner of the Oaks. Quashed had prevailed at Epsom in the last stride and had to draw on the same reserves in a final-furlong duel with the big American colt. Her short-head victory made her the toast of a nation.

1945: The end of a golden era

In the first half of the last century the Gold Cup was Britain's prestige contest for older horses. The quality of the fields reached a peak immediately after the Second World War but thereafter the rot set in and shorter races became more desirable. Ocean Swell, the 1945 Gold Cup winner, was not as good a horse as his four immediate successors, but his significance is that he was the last Derby winner to win the stayers' crown. The only other to take part since was Blakeney, second in 1970.

1952: The birth of a legend

When Malka's Boy won the Wokingham Stakes, the only comment was that his all-the-way three-length victory was one of conspicuous ease. Little notice was taken of the 16-year-old in the saddle but 41 years later there were rather more plaudits when Lester Piggott rode the last of his record 116 Royal Ascot winners on College Chapel in the Cork & Orrery Stakes. The current winningmost jockey Pat Eddery, on 71 wins, also opened his Royal account in the Wokingham, on Sky Rocket in 1969 as a 7lb-claimer.

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